


Fade to Grey

by moonage_daydream



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017)
Genre: Character Death, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Gascival, Gay, Ghosts, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22605871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonage_daydream/pseuds/moonage_daydream
Summary: David had never believed in ghosts. But of course, James Gascoigne had waited for him.
Relationships: James Gasciogne/David Percival
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Fade to Grey

  
"Well played." 

The lights went out with a muffled bang and David held his breath in anticipation of the pain. 

_No_ , said his heartbeat. _No more_.   
  
He'd expected screaming agony yet there was nothing. The racket from the street had fallen silent, no hollering, no fireworks. Not even ghosts lingered. Well, he'd never believed in ghosts anyway.

Ugh, but it was cold! Shit, this city could be mean in winter; so grey, so damp, so unforgiving. What a bitch. After all he'd done for her. After all the long nights he'd spent in rapture within her. After all the foggy days he'd lain warm in her embrace, not wanting to wake up. 

He searched for the cigarette he'd been lighting up before ... before ... Oh, before didn't matter, did it? _Did_ it? What had even come before? It had only ever been Berlin. She had entranced him from the first moment. She had seduced him, led him, bound him, fucked him, she had beaten him, warmed him and soothed him one day, and thrown him out in the street the next, only to have him return on hands and knees, begging for another hit. He had lived for her, grown addicted to her, grown sick for her. 

Now here she left him, used up and utterly spent, frozen and wounded while revolution turned around him and without him. What an utter fucking whore.

"Need a light?" The hand that slipped beneath his head to help him sit up was strong and familiar. 

In the suddenly too-bright flame of the lighter, he recognized the tall form that leaned over him. "James?"

It couldn't be. James, encouraging him smoking? He'd been such an annoying prick about it ever since he'd managed to quit, always nagging, disapproving, fussing, worrying about David's health.

"Got yourself into a right pickle, haven't you, Bärchen?"  
  
The flicker of a smirk was brutally familiar, as was the nickname James used ("He calls me that because of my jacket!" David had once made an excuse, though the truth was naturally cruder and fonder) but the shape of his lover kneeling over him had to be a mirage, no other way about it. That said, it was more formed than anything David had imagined in the past week.  
  
James was holding him and he could feel his fingertips pressing against his scalp, his nails stroking through the short crop of his hair. He was there, and he was warm - no, he was _hot_ \- and he was pulling David off the floor and into his embrace, to straddle his legs, his arms wrapping around his back. David drank his kisses like they were the very air he no longer breathed.

"God, I love you!" The truth he'd been repeatedly chewing and swallowing for years finally forced its way up into his mouth and he had no care to try to keep it down anymore. It had been tasting like bile for too long. "I love you, I love you. Fuck I love you, you fucking perfect guy." 

"I know, I know." James allowed him to break the kiss and leaned back only the width of words. He'd always known, he'd only ever needed to hear it.

"Wait!"  
  
But James was dead. 

"I think..." David wrenched himself free and scrambled backwards on to his feet, patting himself down and inspecting himself in the ugly dim streetlight. He was conscious that he probably looked a bit comic, and very manic, but actually this was madness because... "Jimmy, I've been shot!"

James rose and caught him in his arms, kissed his brow softly, calmly. "Yes."

Oh Christ, yes, that was it. He was abruptly aware of the lack of his heartbeat. It had been hammering so few minutes ago. He'd been running and he'd almost made it but he hadn't been fast enough.

"The list..."

"Shh." James kissed him again. "That's all someone else's problem now. We're done here." 

No. He couldn't be done. Especially not now he was a liar. Not now he was a traitor. There'd be no memorial for him. His name would be forgotten, he'd been christened with another moniker and that would be all anyone would remember. Lorraine had shrugged off the guise of Satchel and dressed his corpse in it, walking away into the night with a string of bones rattling behind her. He hoped they never grew silent, that they kept her awake every night for the rest of her life. 

"David." He met James's blue eyes, too bright in the darkness. "Your work is finished. It's time to go."

The cold wind hustled him as it always did here in the courtyard, tickling him like a playful lover's touch that chilled him and hurt his lungs, slapping his face before running out into the street and diminishing against the Wall.  
  
James led him out into the street, where a new sun was rising in the East. It seemed like the entire city was shuddering, stone and mortar pushing and pulling, history and future crashing and melding together. Berlin was already looking at new colours, trying on new styles, like a woman who'd just thrown off an old boyfriend and was ready to show the world a thing or two.   
  
How could David tell her that he loved her just as she was? He loved her neon and grey, her crooked streets, her houses that had seen better days. He'd fought and died for this, but truly he'd never wanted her to be any different, for all her cruelty. He couldn't be without her. "I don't want anything to change."

"Then it doesn't have to change," James's hand felt warmer within his own than it had in months. "Not for us."


End file.
